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20110303

Passage to Sioux Passage

Greetings, Team Seagalistas. Today was a beaut-ee-ful day, and one good epic ride this week (DBH) deserves another, so what better way to spend a gorgeous day than by riding my chubby clydesdale ass up to Sioux Passage County Park and back. Everyone had to be at work for jerks, so it was Mario van Peebles style for the Crotch today. It was, quite a journey.

Starting out down Southwest, looking forward to passing through those tall buildings in the distance:

Approaching the MacArthur Bridge, a massive industrial structure that no one pays any attention to since they closed it to vehicle traffic in 1981:

Moving along the riverfront, I think the old Union Electric building at the MRT trailhead is very ornate and really cool:

Nothing too exciting on the MRT to photograph, except stopping to help a dude who had a flat, and one hand that doesn't work due to a stroke he suffered a while back. His bike was actually pretty trick - two shifters on one side of his carbon Specialized, and his one brake lever actuated both calipers. If Xzibit were there, he'd say "Yo Dawg, We heard you got a busted hand, so we PIMPED YO RIDE so you can SHIFT WITH ONE HAND WHILE YOU RIDE." Unfortunately for him, an old dude wearing a helmet like this one was... ahem... not able to properly finish the task. As I roll up, they were two tubes and one hand down. So I come, droppin' truth bombs left and right, and rode off before the smoke cleared, leaving him with a ready-to-ride bike. BAM.

My 1-Man Man-Train choo-choo'd along, eventually hopping onto Riverview Drive which would wind up past Columbia Bottoms and eventually past the site of a great CX battle last year, Spanish Lake. But not before seeing this guy: He complimented me on my "Superior A-A-A-A-A-A-A-titude." The name on the mailbox said "Angel," which leads me to believe that Criss Angel is devising a new magic trick where he makes sheep virginities disappear.

It was a pretty decent ride through NoCo to get from the MRT to Sioux Passage, but after 45 minutes or so, I could say: Mission: AccomplishedI've never been to Sioux Passage, and I was pleasantly surprised by the undulating terrain, smooth roads, and peaceful surroundings bordering the river. Of course, after last weekend, a hill like this one stood nary a chance:I reached the edge of the park, otherwise known as the Missouri River, and I found a separate little fishing haven, or an adulterous-liaison haven, depending on how you look at it.Who died? And how?Having spent enough time out there, the Ryback Pain Train had to be turned around and headed back for home base. Backtracking through NoCo, I once again found myself overlooking Columbia Bottoms, about to bomb the fuck outta the hill:

At the Riverview/270 intersection, I stopped for some little chocolate donuts, one of which was moldy, and a smoked meat stick, and was on my way. But it wasn't long before I was wanting to check out one of the city limit markers around the city, this one up on Riverview:Are there others? I know of the one on Manchester in Maplewood...

Not much farther down the road and I had a vision. It had been a long day in the saddle, and one of the chocolate donuts had some mold on it. Perhaps it was the hallucinogenic donut that brought Energor to visit me: He said, "Fear not, Bro-seephus, for you Attitude and State of Mind are both Superior. You shall crush all that oppose you."

I came to farther down the trail, just in time to narrowly miss hitting a bollard. Since the sunlight was waning, I made quick work of the rest of the trail, snaked my way through the city, and reach the home base just in time to see the odometer click over the 70 mile mark:

What's next?

-Casey F. Ryback

P.S. This really was just said on Jersey Shore: "I had sex last night... my vagina's killing me."